Questions of a beginner in Irish

stephanus

Hello everyone,

I have just registered in this forum hoping that I may put the odd question here on the Irish language. I have only recently started to learn Irish fulfilling a long hedged dream. Unfortunately, there aren't too many speakers of Irish where I live (South of Germany) so I had to think of a way to have my questiones answered. And it was only today that I came up with the idea of looking for an Irish language board on the net. And here I am!

The book I am using is actually introducing a living dialect of Irish, spoken in Cois Farraige (haven't got the book here, so please forgive my spelling) which was and still is the only available book on Irish in Germany.
Is there a lot of difference between that dialect and the Standard Irish tought at schools?

Micilin Muc

Tá fáilte romhat a Stephanus!

stephanus wrote: »

Is there a lot of difference between that dialect and the Standard Irish tought at schools?

You'll find that the official standard for Irish isn't as healthy as the official standard for German in terms of widespread usage.

• The Standard Irish is taught to all Primary School trainee teachers.
• If the primary school teacher is teaching in a Gaeltacht, they'll generally teach the local dialect.
• If the teacher is teaching outside the Gaeltacht, they'll use their own native dialect. If they have no native dialect, they'll use whatever dialect they learnt, or else they'll use a form of the Standard that suits them most.

In terms of yourself learning Irish, it is a good idea to stick to one dialect, and to try and understand the other dialects.

Does that answer your question?

stephanus

Yes, it does. That gives me some impression of how things are Irishwise.

In what way is the official standard for Irish not that healthy? I have read an article on that standard and the impression I got is that it is not really accepted outside non-Gaeltacht schools. It also seems to be somewhat simplified in comparison to the natural Irish.

What kind of Irish do I hear on Radio or Television, then? Standard or natural? (Must look up the terms for that ...)

Micilin Muc

I don't think the Official Standard (which is a grammar and spelling standard) has been as successful as the standards for other languages because only a very small percentage of fluent Irish speakers use the standard in everyday speech. One of the reasons it has not been successful is because it is quite different in some respects to how Irish is spoken in the Gaeltachtaí, mostly in terms of grammar. You would seldom find a native speaker using the Official Standard.

Raidió na Gaeltachta is mostly composed of native speakers using their own dialect and not the Standard. However some of their broadcasters are versed in the rules of the Standard, but still do not generally stick to the Standard. The broadcasters on Nuacht TG4 would use the Standard more often than on Raidió na Gaeltachta.

The only domain in which the Official Standard is used strictly would be official State documentation and in third-level institutes.

As regards acceptance of the Standard in schools, it is generally accepted and used outside the Gaeltachtaí, but not in the Gaeltachtaí. It isn't a simplified version of natural Irish or anything, it's just that the Irish-language competency is not very high outside the Gaeltachtaí!

We would call natural Irish "native Irish" and the term "native speaker" would usually refer to someone who was brought up speaking Irish in a Gaeltacht (or outside the Gaeltacht!)

stephanus

I am simply a bit careful about learning the non standard version of a language. I don't feel that as a foreigner who may never master a language completely I cannot halfway change over to a dialect before I don't know the standard language. That would leave me with two halves and nothing complete. That is the experience I have made with my own foreign language competency as well as that of many foreigners living here.
Irish, however, seems to be a very special case in many respects and in the dialect-standard one as well. Which is what I LIKE!

So Cois Fharraige (looked it up) it is!

Micilin Muc

stephanus wrote: »

So Cois Fharraige (looked it up) it is!

Good idea! I forgot to mention that a new official standard is being prepared at the moment as the 1958 one is out of date ...